Isaiah 18

Berean Standard Bible

Chapter summary

The prophet addresses the land along the rivers of Cush that sends messengers by sea in papyrus vessels to a tall, smooth-skinned, and powerful nation of strange speech whose land is divided by rivers. He announces that all inhabitants of the world will witness a banner raised on the mountains and hear the sound of a ram's horn. The Lord states that He will quietly watch from His dwelling place like shimmering heat in the sunshine or a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. Before the harvest, when the blossom is gone and the flower becomes a ripening grape, the shoots and branches will be cut off with a pruning knife and left to mountain birds of prey and wild animals for the summer and winter. Finally, gifts will be brought to the Lord of Hosts at Mount Zion from that same tall, smooth-skinned, powerful, and widely feared nation.

Summary automatically generated from the Bible text.

Words of Jesus in red

¹Woe to the land of whirring wings, along the rivers of Cush, ²which sends couriers by sea, in papyrus vessels on the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people widely feared, to a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers. ³All you people of the world and dwellers of the earth, when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it; when a ram’s horn sounds, you will hear it. ⁴For this is what the LORD has told me: “I will quietly look on from My dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” ⁵For before the harvest, when the blossom is gone and the flower becomes a ripening grape, He will cut off the shoots with a pruning knife and remove and discard the branches. ⁶They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey, and to the beasts of the land. The birds will feed on them in summer, and all the wild animals in winter. ⁷At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD of Hosts— from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people widely feared, from a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers— to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD of Hosts.

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Louis Segond 1910 and Berean Standard Bible: public domain. Cross references: open-cross-ref, Creative Commons BY 4.0.